Chapter 21 Brooke
Brooke
After I unloaded all of my baggage on Caleb, we spent another hour catching up on what we’ve been up to for the last five years.
We talked about everything: work, friends, exes.
Everything except that Warehouse Party. I almost brought it up, but my heart’s been through enough this week.
It’s starting to feel like we’re friends again and that’s not worth jeopardizing.
Especially with the tremendous amount of work ahead of us.
Waking up the next morning, I feel lighter than I have all year.
I brew myself some coffee and I head upstairs to the small bedroom I turned into an office.
I painted the room a colonial blue and got a bright pink couch.
Bookshelves line one wall, filled with old bridal magazines and books.
Usually my Sundays are sacred, but I’ve got too much to catch up on after a week of ignoring Caleb.
I settle at my antique writing desk and get to work.
Labor Day weekend is six weeks away, and even with the Quincy wedding looming, I have five other weddings to get through first. Off-season can’t come soon enough.
I’ll have a few weddings in the fall, but my calendar is completely clear December through March.
If I’d married Kent, we’d be doing a belated honeymoon in January.
I should book a trip with Maddie and Jordan.
Get away from the worst New England months.
After I catch up on tasks related to this Saturday’s wedding, I focus on the Quincy wedding.
For an event of this size and importance, planning has been fairly straightforward.
That makes me nervous. The only guarantee in event planning is that something will go wrong.
The closer the wedding date gets, the harder it is to troubleshoot any issues that arise.
If I have any hope of proving to Mom how capable I am, I need to anticipate challenges before they become real problems.
Despite the entire staff being in the office on Tuesdays, they’re my most productive day. Something about the chaos of the office helps me concentrate. I put on my headphones and focus on the next wedding. It’s in five days—an eternity in event planning.
Tuesdays are also the weekly staff meeting.
We review upcoming weddings, discuss new client prospects, and go over general housekeeping.
It’s crammed with two dozen women occupying every possible surface.
Judy doesn’t subscribe to work-from-home flexibility.
She regularly tells us she didn’t pay rent through eighteen months of a global pandemic just so everyone could work from home in their sweatpants when it was over.
But in the same breath, she complains there are too many people and why can’t we figure out a way to fit everyone that doesn’t require someone sitting on the floor.
Whenever she goes on this tangent, she reminds me and Maddie of Miss Hannigan complaining about being surrounded by little girls.
Maddie whispers over her computer, “Little girls, little girls, everywhere I turn I can see them.” I stifle a laugh as Mom emerges from her office.
I mouth stop to Maddie.
“Brooke,” Mom calls across the office. The room falls silent. “Do you have something to share?”
“Sorry, Judy,” I say, ignoring the snickering assistants. All this weird boundary does is make newer staff laugh at the absurdity of it. It’s obvious they have yet to see Judy’s harsher side. If they had, they’d be a lot more terrified of her.
One by one, each lead planner provides updates on their weddings.
We troubleshoot any hiccups as a team. When it’s my turn, I share details for the upcoming weekend.
And since the entire staff is so invested both professionally and personally—they all follow Hannah Quincy’s socials—I share updates on her wedding, as well.
The assistants are vying for one of the coveted spots working on-site at their favorite influencer’s wedding.
When I mention that I’ll be sharing assignments next week, they’re buzzing like kids at a birthday party who found out it’s time for goody bags.
“I can’t believe Foley’s is working with us!”
“Did you see the reel Hannah posted today? She was wearing the cutest dress.”
“I’d die to work her wedding.”
“I want to see that hot chef.”
Judy clears her throat. Loudly. The assistants quiet, pressing their lips into thin lines.
“Ladies, some decorum please. Brooke will make her staff recommendations and share them as discussed. It is unprecedented that we’re working with Foley’s; they’re lucky to be included in such an esteemed vendor team.
And none of you should be setting your sights on a chef, whether he’s attractive or not.
You’re Spencer Soirees planners and should be aiming higher than that.
” Her gaze lands right on me like she knows Caleb’s been to my house. Twice.
“That’s all, ladies,” she says, turning on her heel and retreating to her office.
“Why are your cheeks on fire? You look like a tomato,” Maddie whispers to me as the meeting ends. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Coffee run?” Maddie asks.
I grab my phone and follow Maddie out the door. I can’t get out fast enough.
“God, she acts like we’re the royal family or something and we must be chaste until marriage.
Heaven forbid we consider a man who uses his hands for his work.
A working-class man, not for a Spencer Soirees girl.
” Maddie is talking and walking fast ahead of me.
“If you ask me, Judy could use a quick romp with a working-class man. Have him take those calloused working hands and work her…”
“Maddie!” I abruptly stop walking. “Do not finish that sentence. That is my mother.”
Maddie turns and begins walking backwards. “Am I wrong?”
“No…but gross.”
I catch up and we walk to Old Post Coffee, the eclectic local coffee house that’s been here since I was a kid.
“So, Brooke, are you setting your sights on a certain hot chef?” Maddie opens the coffee shop door. “Because I’m still mad at him for what he did to you.”
I shush her. “Someone might hear you, and no, I am not. We’re work acquaintances who are…I don’t know…maybe becoming friends again. That’s all! But Judy cannot know that, Maddie. As far as she’s concerned, I’m begrudgingly working with Caleb and hating every minute of it.”
She holds her hands up in defeat. “Alright, alright.”
I give her an overdramatic eye roll and we order our coffees: iced oat milk latte with brown sugar syrup for me and a double Americano for Maddie. Even though the last thing Maddie ever needs is more energy.
“So, you and Caleb are friends?”
“Yes,” I say, focused on twirling my drink in a large circle to mix it while avoiding Maddie’s hazel eyes. “We’re friends.”
“You don’t have any feelings for him anymore? Because it was a lot of work picking up those pieces after he left.”
“Feelings,” I scoff. She might be on to me, but it’s not like whatever I’m feeling for Caleb is going to become anything.
Something might feel different now, but he could’ve made a move last night and didn’t.
No, nothing can happen. I hate keeping my feelings from her, but I’m not prepared for her wrath if I admit anything, especially if nothing would come from it.
I’ll keep lying to myself instead. “No, no feelings.”
By the time we’ve returned, coffees in hand, most of the staff have left for meetings or site visits.
Mom’s in her office with the door closed.
That’s odd. She usually likes to keep her eyes and ears on her staff.
I settle at my desk to update the Quincy wedding weekend timeline and think about which staff should round out my day-of team for each event.
Definitely not the snickering assistants. They’re way too green.
Their excitement over the pseudo-celebrity wedding does give me some newfound excitement of my own, though. I’m elated to land this account, but I’m not fangirling like they are. Hannah, while an extremely popular and successful influencer, is simply another young woman planning a wedding.
It always helps to look at my brides this way.
Whether they’re an influencer with brand deal money or the girl next door who’s splurging on a wedding planner, they’re all women planning their most important day so far.
I’ve never liked the idea of a wedding day being the most important day of someone’s life.
There are so many special moments ahead, waiting to be enjoyed.
It’s this somewhat lackadaisical attitude about wedding days that Mom hates.
To her, it is the most important day of a woman’s life.
But I like to think my approach is what makes me so great at my job.
Yes, your wedding day is a meaningful milestone, but it’s also just a party celebrating the love two people have for each other with the people who love them.
Maybe that’s also what helped me on Saturday night. Confessing to Caleb that I’d been engaged on what was supposed to be my wedding night. It was just a party. A party that was so not my taste or style with people I didn’t know and who didn’t know me, let alone love me.
I may not have put much thought into what an engagement looked like, but I have thought about what my perfect wedding would look like.
Not often, because when your mother is Judy Spencer, the wedding you envision isn’t an option.
But I allow myself to think about it for a minute.
Something small, no more than fifty people.
Unless my husband-to-be comes from a large family.
In that case, I’ll bump it up to seventy-five, no more.
There’s a boutique hotel nearby with a stunning restaurant that opens up to a cobblestone courtyard filled with trees and string lights.
Or there are some beautiful properties in the backcountry with modern farmhouses or renovated barns.
There’d be a short, meaningful ceremony outside, followed by a family-style dinner and dancing.
Lots of dancing. I’d wear a simple white dress without a single stitch of lace.
Surrounding me and my fiancé would be only the people we love.
Of course, this fantasy will never happen. I can’t decide what’s worse—marrying the person I love and having an over-the-top wedding planned by my mother, or not getting married to the person I love at all.